RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g
THE DISTRICT WATCH COMMITTEE

141

in the Colony. In 1948 they were taken over by the Medical and Health Department.

58 G. W. Skinner, Leadership and Power in the Chinese Community of Thailand, Ithaca, New York, Yale University Press, 1958, p. 79.

59 James Michie wrote: "The means taken to conciliate the Chinese (in Hong Kong) must be deemed on the whole to have been successful. There was first police supervision, then official protection under a succession of qualified officers, then representation in the Colony Legislature and on the Commission of the Peace. The colonial executive has wisely left to the Chinese a large measure of a kind of self-government which is more effective than anything that could find its expression in votes of the Legislature. The administration of purely Chinese affairs by native committees, with a firm ruling hand over their proceedings, seems to fulfil every purpose of government." The Englishman in China during the Victorian Era, Edinburgh and London, William Blackwood, 1900, vol. 1, pp. 280-1.

60 The Labour Advisory Board was established in 1937 and consisted of the Secretary for Chinese Affairs, the Secretary and Cashier of His Majesty's Naval Yard, the Assistant Director of Supply and Transport of the China Command, a representative of the Public Works Department, the Manager of the Taikoo Sugar Refinery, the manager of the Hong Kong Electric Company, and the manager of the Taikoo Dockyard. The members consisted entirely of representatives of large government departments and employers of labour. The board rarely functioned.

61 The Chinese General Chamber of Commerce was founded in 1896 principally by Ho Kai and Wei Yuk. It was called at first the Chinese Merchants Bureau. In 1913, after a period of decline, a new building costing $40,000 was erected in Connaught Road. After 1913 the Chamber became one of the most influential bodies in Hong Kong, and many members of the District Watch Committee served at one time or another on its executive committee. The Chinese Club was founded in 1899 by Sir Robert Ho Tung and modelled on the European Hong Kong Club. A description of the Club's premises is to be found in Mrs. Archibald Little, The Land of the Blue Gown, London, T. Fisher Unwin, 1902, p. 323: "We were taken by the Committee into an upper room, where European comforts of curtains and cushioned arm-chairs were judiciously intermingled with Cantonese elegances of black carved wood and landscape marble." Mrs. Little was a member of the Anti-Footbinding League or Natural Feet Society.

62 See G. William Skinner for a detailed analysis of Chinese associations. See especially ch. 6 of his Leadership and Power in the Chinese Community of Thailand.

63 For Overseas Chinese associations, see important works by the following: Maurice Freedman, "Immigrants and Associations: Chinese in Nineteenth Century Singapore," Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 3, no. 1, 1960, and Chinese Family and Marriage in Singapore, London, H.M.S.O., 1957; G. W. Skinner, Chinese Society in Thailand: An Analytical History, Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press, 1957, and Leadership and Power in the Chinese Community of Thailand, Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press, 1958; William E. Willmott, The Political Structure of the Chinese Community in Cambodia, London, The Athlone Press, 1970; and Edgar Wickberg, The Chinese in Philippine Life 1850-1898, New Haven, Conn., Yale University Press, 1965.

64 See Wilfred Blythe, The Impact of Chinese Secret Societies in Malaya, London, Oxford University Press, 1969.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q
TIN-YUKE CHAR

and by boat to Honolulu, arriving on October 29, 1881, after a tour of nine months and eight days. The harbor of Honolulu was crowded with people welcoming the safe return of the King. The Royal Hawaiian Band played "Home, Sweet Home." Arches entwined with flowers spanned the streets. The Chinese merchants of Honolulu erected a triumphal arch at the intersection of King and Fort Streets. As King Kalakaua mentioned in his July 3rd letter from Rome, "The trip appears as if a mixed panorama and a dream. We have seen Emperors, Kings, temples, and pagodas until one gets apparently confused which end to commence and where and how it will be finished. So many varieties of the people, the different nationalities, the customs and scenery of the places we have visited that have made our travels so pleasant."

As one historian commented, "The trip had been a great experience. Kalakaua had stood where Alexander the Great had stood and Julius Caesar, and Napoleon; and the foremost rulers of his own day had welcomed him with cannon salutes and guards of honor. Pomp and circumstance agreed with Kalakaua. He came home, more convinced than ever that a king should rule as well as reign."10

Another result of the King's tour was the legislative approval of his proposal to provide education in foreign countries for selected Hawaiian youths. This progressive policy was inspired by what he observed on his journey. One of the students sent abroad was Kapaa who went to China in 1883. The Reverend Andrew Happer in Canton was asked to be Kapaa's instructor and guardian as evidenced in the March 7, 1883 letter from Walter Gibson, then Hawaiian Minister of Foreign Affairs, to F. Bulkeley-Johnson, Hawaiian Consul General in Hong Kong: "that Mr. Kapaa's visit to China is made in pursuance of a resolution of the Legislature, providing for the education of Hawaiian youths. His Majesty the King desired that one of these should proceed to China and there study the Chinese language and customs. I, therefore, invoke your good offices on behalf of young Kapaa, who has been selected for this career, and shall be obliged by your placing him where he can learn the dialects (Cantonese and Hakka) chiefly spoken by the Chinese who are here, and the written language, acquiring at the same time familiarity with Chinese manners and ideas. I am, of course, anxious that while pursuing this course of study, Mr. Kapaa should not lose such European culture as he has acquired."
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1981
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m
94

CARL T SMITH

community in Hong Kong on the long established Chinese custom of buying children as domestic servants. This attention led to concern, discussion, agitation, the formation of societies and finally in 1923 an Ordinance in the Hong Kong Legislature to abolish the system.

The case concerned a man who had met two girls aged ten and thirteen on a street in Wanchai. They had gone out to buy sweets and had become lost. The stranger took them on a tram to the Yaumati ferry. They crossed to Kowloon and then returned. He left them for a few minutes to buy something in Wing On Store on Connaught Road Central. The girls came to the notice of the police and the man was arrested when he returned to where he had left them.

Mr. Alabaster claimed the two women who owned the girls did not have lawful care of them because they were bought to serve, and they were sold as slaves and slavery has been abolished (in Britain and its colonies) and it is not lawful”.

On being examined by the Chief Justice one of the mistresses gave evidence that one of the girls had been sold by her elder brother as she had no parents. The Chief Justice asked, "Then as put by the learned Counsel for the defence, she is your slave?”

The witness replied, "I do not know what you mean by slave. Once the girl is sold to me she is my property. It is the custom among the Chinese to buy servants."

Mr. Alabaster thanked the Chief Justice that the answer to his question had made it so clear the girl was a slave.

His Lordship then asked Mr. Alabaster, "What is a slave?"

He replied, "I contend that a person who is bought by a master and may be sold by a master, who receives no wages, except clothes and food in exchange for work is a slave."

Mr. Alabaster admitted that sale of a child might be legal in China, but once it was brought to the Colony, it had the right to freedom.

The Chief Justice referred to the Proclamation of Captain Eliot to the Chinese of Hong Kong in 1841 that stated Britain would respect the religious rites, ceremonies and social customs of the Chinese. The Supreme Court usually took into account the question of Chinese custom. If the point in law raised by Mr. Alabaster were to be sustained by a Full Court it would have most serious consequences.

The question was not settled by the court but it provoked public
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q
66

the Legislative Council.

The Attorney General introduced the Bill on 21 September 1922. He sounded a cautionary warning, saying that while action was needed, we must attack a problem of this kind very carefully and slowly”, because too much interference with the existing system would cause great hardship.

1

At the second reading of the bill a week later the Governor stated that the Commission on Child Labour recognised it was inevitable that the regulations on the labour of children would impose hardship on the lowest economic group in Hong Kong, but this was the lesser of two evils, for if nothing were done the harm done to children would continue. He hoped that a general improvement in industry in Hong Kong would assist in alleviating any hardship caused by the new legislation; he noted that already adults were receiving higher wages.

He assured the Legislature that the Government was committed to expanding educational facilities and was investigating provision of better accommodation for the poor, thus cutting down their housing costs.

He particularly acknowledged the contribution of Miss Pitts and the Rev. Wells to the Commission's Report. He expected that the passing of the Ordinance would put a seal, as it were, on their work here in connection with the Chinese”.

He viewed the Bill as the beginning of a proper recognition of the *rights of both women and children in the industrial life of the Colony which has so long been considered desirable but which has not hitherto been very noticeable”.

Several Unofficial Members spoke. The Senior Chinese member, the Honourable Mr. Chow Shouson spoke first. He said that he and his Chinese colleagues were in sympathy with the Bill, nevertheless they felt it should be noted that in their opinion if the Bill were passed as it then stood some poor families would be deprived of a part of other earning power. There was the possibility of an increase in juvenile criminals if children, who had formerly been working, were allowed to run wild in the streets.

Page 90

Page 91
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1995
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g
The terms of the Order-in-Council were echoed and further implemented in the New Territories (Exemption from Laws) Ordinance, 1899 (No 6 of 1899). The position, therefore, as regards proceedings other than land cases is that such of the laws of England as existed when the Colony obtained a local legislature, that is to say, on 5th April 1843 are the governing laws subject to two provisions,

Firstly "except so far as the said laws are inapplicable to the local circumstances of the Colony or its inhabitants;” Secondly "and except so far as they have been modified by laws passed by the said legislative.”

The first provision has always been construed to let in Chinese customary law when a necessity arises of preventing injustice or oppression. The passages already quoted from the Secretary of State's despatch and from the Governor's proclamation bear out that construction in regard to the application of section 5 of the Supreme Court Ordinance to the New Territories.

As to the date for the recognition of customary law to be applied in such cases, opinions differ. One opinion is to be found appended to the Report of the Committee appointed in 1948. The choice there offered is between custom existing in 1841, when Captain Elliot took over Hongkong, that existing in 1898, when the New Territories were leased to the United Kingdom, or that existing in 1905, when the New Territories Land Ordinance, 1905, was enacted. The anonymous author of that opinion inclined to select the latter year, but the Committee expressed no opinion on the matter. The New Territories Administration, on the other hand, has interpreted “Chinese Law and custom” to mean the law and custom of Manchu China as it existed on April 20th, 1899. For reasons given in my previous article, it is submitted that as in the Colony of Hongkong, so in the New Territories, a court should apply the Chinese customary law existing at the time that court is called upon to determine any issue. Particular support can be found for that submission in respect of the New Territories in the opinion of the Attorney General in 1898 that it was "hardly necessary...to enter into the question as to whether any and, if so, which of the laws of England in force on 5th April, 1843... should be specially included in an exempting Ordinance, because such laws were only brought into force in Hong Kong “so far as they were not inapplicable to the local circumstances of the Colony or its inhabitants.” The Government was

Page 17

 
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1995
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g
then considering whether the New Territories should be exempted from the application of any legislation in force in Hong Kong in 1898. The Attorney General apparently took the view that as regards any English law in force in the Colony such an exemption would not arise, since it would be exempted from application to the New Territories by the first provision of section 7 of the Supreme Court Ordinance, 1873, even though that particular law might not be inapplicable to the circumstances and the inhabitants of the Colony of Hong Kong. In other words, he does not appear to have been looking at the theoretical needs of the inhabitants of the area along the south bank of the Shum Chun River in 1843, which area later became the New Territories in 1898, but at their requirements at the time he considered the matter in December 1898.

A former Solicitor General of Hong Kong has drawn attention to the distinction between the provisions of what is now section 17 of the New Territories Ordinance and of what is now section 5 of the Supreme Court Ordinance. To this matter, it will be necessary to revert later when we consider the customary law on particular subjects. It is, however, fitting to observe at this point that the legislature in enacting section 17 of the New Territories Ordinance did not specify the date for the recognition of "Chinese custom or customary right affecting such land.” The plain meaning of the words, it is submitted, leads one to the conclusion that the Chinese customary law to be so recognised and enforced is that which affects the land at the time of the hearing of the proceedings. The legislature must be presumed to have been logical; it would be unlikely to select modern Chinese customary law for application in land cases and the Law of the Manchu Ts'ing Dynasty obtaining in the Province of Kwangtung in 1843 or in 1899 for application in other proceedings arising in the New Territories. Here again, it is submitted, is an additional argument in support of the view that in all types of proceedings, both those involving land and otherwise, the Chinese customary law applicable, if it is to be applied, is modern Chinese customary law obtaining in the New Territories.

Having so defined the date for recognition of Chinese customary law, the question then arises as to what that Chinese customary law comprises. In 1911, that question was difficult to answer, and we may with advantage digress a moment to consider the words of the Chief Justice delivering the judgment of the Full Court in the case of LI
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g
14

Canadian products. To counter this competition the British government in 1934 instructed the colonies to institute a system of quotas for 'piece goods containing 50 per cent or more of cotton or of artificial silk, or of cotton and artificial silk combined'. The annual quota allowed in any colony should be the average imports over the years 1927 to 1931." This covered the period before Japanese textiles began to flood into colonial markets. British textiles and empire textiles were excluded from quota, provided that they had 50 per cent imperial content. This measure aroused considerable opposition in many colonies since the poorest customers would be deprived of their only source of cheap clothing for the benefit of the British textile industry. The official majority was used to carry the bill through the colonial legislatures in the face of opposition from the unofficial members. In Ceylon, where elected unofficials had a majority in the legislative council, quotas were imposed by an Order in Council issued by the British government. In spite of its long history as a free port Singapore agreed to impose quotas on imports retained in the colony. Hong Kong refused because of possible damage to its entrepôt trade, much to the annoyance of the colonial secretary, Cunliffe-Lister.52

In 1936 the Colonial Office asked for reports from all colonies on the effects of the quotas imposed two years earlier. The replies from governors indicated that quotas had been generally successful in excluding Japanese and foreign textiles, but this had had very little effect in increasing the trade of Britain and Canada. As happened when discriminatory duties were imposed on rubber shoes the chief beneficiary was Hong Kong. Imports of shirts, singlets and hosiery from Hong Kong had made their appearance for the first time and were now the dominant supplier at the cheaper end of the market." The governor of Jamaica complained that imports of ready-made apparel were driving the local garment industry out of business and suggested specific duties or quotas on Hong Kong textiles on the same lines as the restrictions against Japan.

34

After the Ottawa conference other Hong Kong goods besides rubber footwear began to appear in the British market. The Import Duties Act 1932 had allowed free entry into Britain to imports provided that at least 25 per cent of their value was derived from materials grown or produced or from work done within a part of the empire. This provision enabled a number of small manufacturers in Hong Kong who had previously exported their products to China and Asian countries to turn their attention to the British market. Exports of wearing apparel to Britain increased from HK$2,000 in 1932 to HK$498,000 in 1933, and HK$1,169,000 in 1935. Exports of electric torches went up from none in 1932 to HK$30,000 in 1933, HK$128,000 in 1934, and HK$131,000 in 1935." The Board of Trade feared that foreign manufacturers such as Japan were shipping goods substantially
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